The winner was Sweden, with the song "Waterloo", composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, written by Stig Anderson and performed by ABBA.

[1] The selected venue was the Dome, completed in 1805 and originally built for the Prince Regent as stables and a riding school for his personal use.

Sold by Queen Victoria in 1850, the stables were converted into a concert hall and assembly rooms in 1867, and the riding school into a market for corn merchants in 1868.

[2][4] Turkey had also expressed an interest in competing, but the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation had been too late in submitting their request to the EBU and were subsequently informed that, as the scoreboard with space for eighteen countries had already been constructed, its planned entry would not have been possible.

[4] Ultimately, however, only seventeen participating entries were performed at the contest, as France made the decision to withdraw from the event due to the death of French president Georges Pompidou on 2 April.

[12] On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Clifford Brown as scrutineer.

A second round of rehearsals, this time in costume, was held for all acts on 5 April, with each country given 20 minutes on stage, followed that evening by a complete run-through of the whole show, including dummy voting.

[4] During rehearsals however, it quickly became apparent to the organisers that they had misjudged how long it would take to conduct this new voting system, as well as mounting concerns that any issues with totalling the scores live could exacerbate the problems.

The lottery aspect of the voting system was, however, retained, although due to timing and sound quality reasons this draw was held before the contest by the EBU's scrutineer Clifford Brown.

[2][31][32] Following the confirmation of the eighteen planned participating countries, the draw to determine the running order (R/O) of the contest was held on 5 December 1973; prior to its withdrawal, France was scheduled to perform in fourteenth position, between the entries from Ireland and Germany.

[4][12] The interval act was a pre-recorded video montage featuring the Wombles, a novelty pop band based on the children's characters of the same name, in various locations across Brighton.

[33][34][35] The medallions awarded to the winning songwriters were presented by the Director-General of the BBC and the President of the European Broadcasting Union, Charles Curran.

[33][35] The winner was Sweden represented by the song "Waterloo", composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, written by Stig Anderson and performed by ABBA.

Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.

[22] In addition to the participating nations, which, with the exception of Italy, all broadcast the contest live on television, the contest was also reportedly aired, live or deferred, by broadcasters in Algeria, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Japan, Jordan, Iceland, Morocco, Poland, South Korea, the Soviet Union and Tunisia.

In addition to television coverage, participating broadcasters in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were also reported to have relayed the contest via radio.

The 1974 contest has retrospectively gained notability for a number of aspects, particularly due to the success of some of the competing acts, as well as political developments within Europe that have indirect links to this edition of the event.

Two competing artists at this year's event, in particular, went on to sustained worldwide success after the contest: Sweden's ABBA and the United Kingdom's Olivia Newton-John.

[104][105] Olivia Newton-John was in the early stages of her career when she was approached by the BBC to represent the United Kingdom at Eurovision; she had achieved previous success in the charts in both the UK and US, particularly with country pop songs, and had been a frequent guest on the It's Cliff Richard show, fronted by two-time Eurovision entrant for the United Kingdom Cliff Richard.

[5][12][106] Newton-John subsequently achieved considerable success in the United States and global recognition after starring in the musical films Grease (1978) and Xanadu (1980).

[107][108] Following the contest, the Portuguese entry, "E depois do adeus" by Paulo de Carvalho, played a large part in the launching of the Carnation Revolution, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, setting Portugal along a path towards the reestablishment of democracy and ending the country's war with its African colonies.